Tag: soul

Nina Simone Revisited

randydafoe24 Comments


“Central Park Blues” (1959) written by Nina Simone. From her debut album ‘Little Girl Blue’. While best remembered for her vocal talents, Nina shows off her considerable chops at the piano.

On the same album her cover of “I Loves You Porgy” from the opera ‘Porgy and Bess’ (George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin). This would be her highest ranking hit on Billboard at #18 on the Pop chart and #5 on the R&B. The video clip shows how brilliant she was and how effortless her piano playing appears, she was quite remarkable.

Born in North Carolina, Eunice Kathleen Waymon (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003) she was a student at the Juilliard School of Music. To hide her activity from her family who would not approve, she changed her name when she was performing in nightclubs in Atlantic City. Apparently she was told they would not pay for someone to sing along with her, so she started to add vocals to her own piano playing. She was really only interested in classical music and studies, so performing using pop music and later recording (income) was used to pursue just that.

“My Baby Just Cares for Me” at over 280 documented cover versions is a jazz standard written by Walter Donaldson with lyrics by Gus Kahn. From the film version of the musical comedy ‘Whoopee!’ (1930), the song became a signature tune for Eddie Cantor who sang it in the movie.

The first actual recording was in 1930 by Ted Weems and His Orchestra with vocals by Art Jarrett. It was me who added in Art’s name as in the early days of recording of just about any ‘so and so’ with his orchestra, the vocalists were very rarely mentioned. Lyrics of this song seem to vary quite a bit from recording to recording.

Clearly the best and most well known version of the song is by a 25 year old Nina Simone, recorded in New York in 1957. She was accompanied by Jimmie Bond on bass and Albert ‘Tootsie’ Heath on the drums. It appears on that same debut album Little Girl Blue, released in January of 1959. This is the first recording I found where the names of Liz Taylor, Lana Turner and Liberace show up. Although I can find no reference as to who actually changed some of the original lyrics, it may have been Nina herself.

Nina would have a period of time from 1959 to 1964 when she was in great demand and drew a good sized audience when touring and made appearances on shows like Ed Sullivan. However, “My Baby Just Cares for Me” went somewhat unnoticed until it was used in a perfume ad in 1987 and then had a huge resurgence.

Unfortunately for Nina she had no rights to the song. It’s unproven as to how it happened but she accepted a $3000 dollar payment and unknowingly gave away her performance portion of the song. Therefore she gained little from it’s popularity apart from some increase in her own CD sales. Her version hit many European charts in 1987 gaining a #5 spot in the UK. I have seen several references that claim she missed out on about 1 million dollars in royalty payments.

An interesting Claymation video with original Simone vocals.

Usher recorded it in 2015 for a Nina Simone tribute album, however he inexplicably changed the lyrics and arrangement in an effort I suppose to ‘modernize’ the names and references. One would think in a real ‘tribute’ being true to the honoree’s original recording might be the way to go. Particularly because Nina Simone was about the 30th or so artist to record the song and it is her version of the song and her new lyrics that was a turning point for the song itself. Add your style if you like but all is lost here in a so called ‘tribute’ that missed the history entirely. In the end it becomes an ‘Usher’ version added to the many covers of the song.

Simone was deeply involved in the civil rights movement in the early 1960’s and beyond and she produced some powerful protest songs. “Mississippi Goddam”,
“Four Women” and (the above clip) “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” (Weldon Irvine, Nina Simone). Aretha Franklin recorded this last song and it was the inspiration for her Album Young, Gifted and Black released in 1972. “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” was also covered by a young Reg Dwight (Elton John) released in 1970.

Nina Simone produced 40 albums but did not regain significant popularity until a few years just before her death but it did give her some well deserved financial security. On April 21, 2003 Nina Simone died in her sleep after suffering with Breast Cancer for several years.

She recorded more amazing covers of songs such as “Baltimore” originally by Randy Newman, “To Love Somebody” from the Bee Gees and in 1961 “The House of the Rising Sun” made famous by ‘The Animals’ in 1964. In all she covered 174 songs and 42 of her original songs have been rerecorded.

The Animals would have a hit song when they were the first to cover Nina Simone’s “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”.

Nina Simone (1964)
The Animals (1965)

Nina was inducted to the The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2018. Her autobiography is titled I Put a Spell on You as she had covered that song as the title track to a 1965 album.

No. 2 “Spanish Harlem”/”Mr. Big Stuff

randydafoe20 Comments

These two songs placed #1 on the *Best Selling Soul Singles (R&B) weekly charts and stood out for me (on the #2’s list) because I bet I’m not alone in still listening to them: “Mr. Big Stuff” by Jean Knight and “Spanish Harlem” by Aretha Franklin, both from 1971.

“Spanish Harlem” was a cover of Ben E King’s original hit song, and Aretha peaked at #2 with her version and was #49 at year-end on Billboard’s Hot 100. Her song was stopped by “Go Away Little Girl” from Donny Osmond, (you just can’t make this stuff up!).

“Mr. Big Stuff” finished the year (1971) at #1 on the Best Selling Soul Singles (R&B) year-end charts but peaked at #2 on Billboard’s Hot 100 weekly charts and ended the year at  #18. It was held back by the Bee Gees first American #1 song “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart”.

“Mr. Big Stuff” was released by Stax Records and written by Joseph Broussard, Carrol Washington and Tony Clarke. There are only 23 versions of this song, perhaps because it’s just too distinctive to attempt. However enough of the song was used by Heavy D. & The Boyz (1986) to be classified as a ‘Cover’ as it used too much of the song to be called a ‘Sample’. The video has a long lead in but it’s pretty entertaining.

“Spanish Harlem” was written by Jerry Leiber and Phil Spector. Aretha had changed the “red rose” lyrics to “There’s a rose in Black ‘n Spanish Harlem. A rose in Black ‘n Spanish Harlem.” There were over twenty versions between the original and Aretha’s and the song now has 196 recordings, which includes many dozen’s of instrumentals.

Cliff Richard covered this song in 1962 and also recorded it German “Das Ist Die Frage Aller Fragen”.

*From August 23, 1969, the Hot Rhythm & Blues Singles chart was renamed to Best Selling Soul Singles. It was changed to Hot Black Singles in late June of 1982. Typically we say R&B charts and I think most people understand the reference as there have been a dozen changes over the years. The next name was Hot R&B Singles, then Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and now it’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.

Personally I think if we have the Hot 100, why they did not go with the Hip 100 is a mystery to me. Yes I know the think-tanks will be lining up to ask my advice – not.

More to read about at Music Mondays by Leon.

No. 2 “Sunny”

randydafoe23 Comments

“Sunny” is an R&B classic written by Bobby Hebb that he released May 2, 1966. In August of 1966 it was held (somewhat ironically) at #2 on the Hot 100 for two weeks behind “Summer in the City” by The Lovin’ Spoonful. And of course it was surpassed the following week by another ‘sun’ song, “Sunshine Superman” by Donovan. “Sunny” would be covered by Chér that same year on her album of the same name but it failed to chart in the US.

You may be as surprised as I was, to find out the song was first recorded by Mieko Hirota with the Billy Taylor Trio and released in January of 1966. She recorded an album in New York but it was only released on the Nippon Columbia label in Japan.

There are over 240 vocal versions of this song, and it has been recorded in over a dozen languages. There are as many instrumental versions as vocal tracks for a total of 500 cover versions. Georgie Fame was the next version released after Bobby’s and it reached #13 in the UK. Cher’s version charted #32 in the UK, and Boney M. released it in 1976 reaching #3, yes once again only in the UK. To my knowledge no one has charted the song since.

There are so many interesting covers of this song; Marvin Gaye recorded it on June 29 of 1966, just four months after Bobby Hebb, who also charted #3 on the R&B chart. However Gaye’s version was not released. My guess, it may have been held (in a class move) so as not to compete with Hebb? Different labels, cities, management etc. but Gaye was already a big star at this time, it would not surprise me if he had it held back, he was that type of person. This, as it turned out was Hebb’s big break since his first release back in 1961. He would have only one other top 40 song in 1966 and that was pretty much it for his chart career.

Bobby’s version first entered the Hot 100 the week ending June 25th of 1966 and peaked as mentioned at #2 the week of August 20th. Gaye’s version was only released in 1990 on The Marvin Gaye Collection a four disc set that came out six years after his death.

Manfred Mann released one of the 14 instrumentals from 1966 alone. Their version does contain the word “Sunny” repeated a few times but by definition it is an instrumental.